Comrade
by SilverCaladan
Summary: I might be scared out of my mind, but that’s brotherly love for you. PRMF


**A/N**: So as I was transcribing Code Breakers for the RangerWiki, this fanfic decided it needed to be written. So here you go, 1174 words of philosophical Chip. There are no lyrics for the inspirational song, as I can't actually find any online. The song is a very upbeat gypsy punk one called "Not a Crime" by Gogol Bordello.

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I've loved comics as long as I can remember.

Mom used to take me grocery shopping with her, unable to find a babysitter, and I'd sit and read the comics while she shopped. The often futuristic, post-apocalyptic worlds didn't appeal to me much; the newspapers looked just like the comics. They were too much like what I expected out of life to hold any interest.

There's only so many times a kid can look at a bombed-out landscape before being unable to distinguish between Israel and Genosha. Barbed wire, machine guns, totalitarian regimes… they all start to look alike, after a while, real or 2D, savior or revenge-driven.

Faeries, vampires, knights, and magic; those were the worlds that drew my attention. They had a base in mythology, but usually in the really far past, and technology was almost completely non-existent. These people lived, but they lived in a world incomparable to anything I experienced, day by day.

Everything was so much simpler; it was always about good versus evil, the world teetering on the edge of destruction and one lone hero reeling it back from the abyss. The hero could be a mage, excelling in the healing arts, or a rogue half-elf, stealthy as can be.

The superhero comics, on the other hand, were much more what I looked for out of life, rather than what I'd loved to live in. Lots of people fighting impossible odds just to help out other people, sacrificing so much of themselves for the better good. It was that nobleness which drew me in, the nobleness which I tried to embody nearly my entire life.

These heroes were touchable, reachable, unlike the superhero teams featured in the news clips and action movies.

I could read along as Bobby Drake suffered in silence, his beloved father a bigot and his mother unwilling to say anything direct to discourage it. I could experience the conflicted emotions as his dad finally gathered that his son was his son, regardless of superpowers, and got beaten up for his efforts. I'm not ashamed to admit that I cried along with Bobby as he saw his dad in the hospital. Bobby's motivation for being a superhero is simple: he's got no choice. He's got the powers; he can either use them to save people, or he can lash out at the unfair world. Simple morality leaves only one choice, bigot father or not.

Then on the other end of the spectrum, you've got the fucking Batman, the human being who single-handedly has half of the known universe utterly terrified of him. For a guy with no real superhuman powers, that's impressive. Especially when you consider the weird fucked up people he goes up against. But I love Bats for his gritty determination and for his, admittedly, awkward attempts to raise sons and even a daughter. His motivation is one of the easiest to grasp: revenge, and a burning desire to never, ever see this happen to another child. For how scary Bats is, he's easily one of the more human-oriented superheroes.

Most of them fight for truth, justice, and the American way… all that jazz. They use their powers to enforce justice and light, and no darkness escapes, for it would threaten the status quo. These superheroes fight for governments, and for ideals. They are the Captain Americas, the Ultimate Fantastic Fours, the Supermans, the Green Lanterns.

That's what I've thought, since forever, being a superhero was about.

The Power Rangers, those distant superheroes elsewhere on the California coast, they are the best example of my ideal, and real to boot. They fight to save the world, to contain the darkness. Rescuing individual people is only a bonus; then they got to see their good deeds first hand.

They fight the giant monsters because it just isn't **_right_** that they control the world. The world belongs to its people, not to an alien overlord. Justice demands that the darkness be driven back, to better facilitate truth and goodness.

It's about helping because it's the right thing to do.

Maybe that's why I agreed so readily to the whole Mystic Ranger business.

The people in the village were being oppressed. They needed rescuing. What else was I supposed to do, especially with my finely tuned moral compass?

But it never hit me until just now what that means.

Sure, I've dog-eared all the comic books. I've beaten all the video games. I've screencapped all the DVDs. I've even organized all of the trading cards.

But all the media in the world is **_not_** a substitute for actually going out and doing something with your own flesh and blood.

It's really easy to look at a picture and think you're getting the true emotions of the event. It's like combat photographers, the ones who attempt to bring the harrowing destruction of war to the couch potato masses. I could look at a beautiful, award-winning, black and white photograph of an orphaned child and see the pain and confusion. But just because I can identify the emotions, and even have some similar ones evoked in me… that doesn't mean that I'm experiencing it. I can see the pain of a child losing his relatives in front of his eyes, gore and all… but I do really experience that? My parents are both still alive.

Real life is infinitely more intense than any other substitute.

Not even video is capable of producing the same effects as reality. There's always that nagging sense, at the back of your mind, that this is all just a projection. Just imaginary. Merely the play of light against a screen combined with studio recorded sound.

I could walk out of a movie that scared me.

I could change the channel on a news story that disturbed me.

I can't do that if I'm the one in the spandex, facing the evil villains determined to annihilate the Earth and all the humans, and non-humans, upon it. I'm the one being shot at, I'm the one getting bruises, I'm the one out there risking my neck for people I've never even met, nor ever will.

It's _me_ on the television screen being tossed through the wall. It's _my_ hobbies and _my_ family that get neglected. I'm not just reading about a nerdy high school superhero sleeping in class, I _am_ that geek.

Looking at the gigantic green monstrosity--which totally needs braces, by the way—it all fell into perspective.

I'm not doing this for the nameless multitude, or for the ideal that this is the right thing to do. No way in fucking hell are those motivations strong enough to send me into the mouth of a creature that could bite through my entire torso with nary a thought.

I'm putting myself up against the ridiculous odds because I have to.

Nick, Maddie, and Xander are in there. They're my friends. I can't leave them there.

I might be scared shitless, but that's brotherly love for you. I'm going after them, end of story.

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End file.
